The reimagination of sustainable integrated care in Ontario, Canada

To encourage clinical and financial efficiency, the Canadian province of Ontario initiated an integrated care program – Integrated Funding Models (IFMs) that required collaboration and coordination across acute and post-acute care sectors. This research shows how program implementers went beyond policy-makers’ original designs, to make integrated care sustainable for chronic diseases.

Goal-Oriented Care: A Catalyst for Person-Centred System Integration

Person-centred integrated care is often at odds with how current health care systems are structured, resulting in slower than expected uptake of the model worldwide. Adopting goal-oriented care, an approach which uses patient priorities, or goals, to drive what kinds of care are appropriate and how care is delivered, may offer a way to improve implementation.

Financing of integrated health service networks

The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean need to increase their public resources in health to expand equitable and efficient access to health. The increase should finance a specific model with proven effectiveness, such as integrated health service networks (IHSN) based on primary health care. The global literature has not paid sufficient attention to financing IHSN; rather, it has focused on isolated facilities and agents, as well as on specific mechanisms. However, in the Region of the Americas, their development has been a necessity for years. An IHSN is a group of health organizations that offers coordinated health interventions ...

Health Networks in Action: The experiences of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico

Dioselina is a 54-year-old divorcée who has no children and lives alone in a large city. She has been unemployed for a year and just started receiving welfare six months ago. As for her health, she has long-term obesity, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes. In recent months, she began to develop foot ulcers because her blood sugar was not being monitored properly, which is attributable in part to difficulty accessing healthcare services and getting medications and lab tests. If she does not receive rapid treatment and more specialized care for the ulcers, they could worsen and require hospitalization ...

The influence of leadership facilitation on relational coordination among primary care team members of accountable care organizations.

Teamwork is a central aspect of integrated care delivery and increasingly critical to primary care practices of accountable care organizations. Although the importance of leadership facilitation in implementing organizational change is well documented, less is known about the extent to which strong leadership facilitation can positively influence relational coordination among primary care team members.

Patient experience of an integrated care model in a family practice clinic and Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC)

Behavioral health issues are daily challenges in all primary care settings. The integration of programs and strategies translates into better global results, which optimizes the effort of health workers. In this study, user satisfaction is evaluated, through validated surveys, in 727 patients from different centers, family practice clinic and a Federally Qualified Health Center.

The context, strategy and performance of the American safety net primary care providers: a systematic review

The objective of this research is to synthesize evidence on the relationship between context, strategies and performance in the context of federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), a core safety net health services provider in the United States. The research also identifies prior approaches to measure contextual factors, FQHC strategy and performance. Gaps in the research are identified, and directions for future research are provided.

Case management service quality and patient-centered care

Providing care that is patient-centered is an important objective in the modern healthcare industry. Despite this objective, hospital inpatient case managers and the services they provide are evaluated routinely without including patients' perspectives. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill this research gap by using patient expectations and perceptions to assess the overall quality of and patient satisfaction with hospital case management services.

COVID-19: General recommendations for the care of older persons from a human rights perspective

Older people may be more likely to experience complications during the COVID-19 pandemic, so this paper provides recommendations for the care of this social group from a human rights perspective, which can be applied in the home, community and long-term care facilities. These recommendations were drawn up on the basis of good practices in countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region and beyond.

Relationships among Structures, Team Processes, and Outcomes for Service Users in Quebec Mental Health Service Networks

Few studies have identified and compared profiles of mental health service networks (MHSN) in terms of structures, processes, and outcomes, based on cluster analyses and perceptions of team managers, mental health professionals and service users.

This study aimed to understand how different configurations of mental health service networks and teams impact on service user outcomes, by identifying through cluster analyses specific categories of associated variables within three Quebec MHSN, based on interrelationships among:

1) Mental health settings, including territorial and organizational features (structures);

2) Characteristics of mental health professionals, including team process variables (e.g., team support, team autonomy);

3 ...